Monday, October 31, 2011

Amanda
Savage sits with the Occupy Wall Street protesters at Zuccotti Park in
New York. Savage, a military recruit, said she's staying in the park
until her boot camp training starts. (Kathy Willens/AP)

Breaking news: NPR has decided to send two reporters on the road to "spend the month reporting from places we don't often visit, telling the stories of people we don't often hear from (sic)." In case you're skeptical that NPR has re-discovered what the "P" in their name stands for, refer to their explanation that they are covering this story during November in order to find out from people, "What are they thinking about when they are looking to next year's election?"

I'll bet you any money that NPR does NOT report that this is what people are thinking (though it's all over Facebook, so obviously not that hard to find):

I'm thinking that the presidential election of 2012 is becoming more irrelevant with each passing day. Why?

Source: Occupy Wall St.'s wall on Facebook

Here's the image on my mind after watching Occupy Denver last night facing
police goons and keeping their morale up by telling dumb jokes, and then having the livestream go suddenly silent;
and then reading this morning that Scott Olsen has lost the power of speech
following his head injury by the Oakland police, who according to eyewitnesses were aiming at the Veterans for Peace flag he and other vets were holding. (You can support Scott Olsen here with a donation.)

The 99% to NPR: you can't fool people who have no home, no health care, no way to pay back their student loans, no jobs, and friends being shot in the head for standing in a park. Hats off today to the hero Bradley Manning and the organization Wikileaks, who have been credited with not only starting the Arab Spring, and the cascade of Occupies that has followed, but even with ending Phase I of the illegal war for Iraq's oil. Their weapons? Just information.

Here's one last image in support of my belief that truth will win out over propaganda in the end. This is a photo at the biggest, tackiest war memorial I have ever seen (it's in Virginia Beach):

This is the kind of garbage that people in the U.S. have been fed for decades.

But the spin machine is breaking down as people realize thatAircraft Carrier is to Diplomacy as Getting Your Skull Cracked for Holding a Veterans for Peace Flag is to Being Protected and Served by Police.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Ok I finally got to visit Occupy Wall St. and it was a freak early wintery mix of a storm -- before Halloween for cripes sake. Three inches of slush accumulated on the streets in Jersey, while in Manhattan it melted more quickly into soupy puddles. At Liberty Plaza only a few hardy souls were leaning into a wet wind, some under light cover but most hunkered down inside tents with flys made out of tarps. We didn't stick it out very long as we were drenched and it was coming down hard. I have a lot of respect for the occupiers. There were a lot of police vehicles, watching.

The few people out in the occupy space looked really cheerful though, despite the fact that the fire dept took their generators and fuel, including used cooking oil, for "safety." The real reason is that the chief purpose of generators is the charging of digital devices used in media work, to get the message out. Squelching real news while pretending to be doing something completely different is a hallmark of corporate rule, is it not?

There were boxes of organic bananas being offered while we were there, a lot of recordings
happening, and more food in the kitchen, which I read they were going to simplify for a few
days while they regrouped and made some plans for feeding so many every
day.

Occupy Walll St. made the evening news in New Jersey as occupiers were compared with 320,000 other people who lost electricity, in the latter case due to heavy wet snow bringing down tree limbs and power lines.

But weather doesn't change the reason people are occupying everywhere. Check out Mimi Pierre Johnson delivering a message about her home mortgage to Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

Occupy Denver had scuffles at the capital building resulting in police using rubber bullets on the unarmed crowd; they were being swarmed by riot police later at their occupation site, and using the people's mike to joyfully recite their constitutional rights -- when the livestream video feed went dead.

Please tell folks that 1000 people, myself included, came to Occupy SF
the night of Oct 26/27 to avert a police attack -- and the attack WAS
averted! It helped a lot that 5 city supervisors and several union reps
were there, but overall the numbers of people were crucial. While every
such victory is fragile, we CAN protect our Occu-pies, but it takes a
human presence on site -- as well as calls to officials, media work,
etc.

Statement posted by Desiree Fairooz of VA on Facebook (not sure if she is the author or not, but I like it):

We will not stop until the corporate abuse of the poor, the working class, the elderly, the sick, children, those being slaughtered in our imperial wars and tortured in our black sites, stops. We will not stop until foreclosures and bank repossessions stop. We will not stop until students no longer have to go into massive debt to be educated, and families no longer have to plunge into bankruptcy to pay medical bills. We will not stop until the corporate destruction of the ecosystem stops, and our relationships with each other and the planet are radically reconfigured. We are the 99%.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

NEWS FLASH: This is what someone who refuses to be cowed by fear looks like. This man is part of a crowd marching from Tahrir Square to the U.S. Embassy in solidarity with Scott Olsen, and following the death in custody of another 24 year old victim of "security" forces; the gruesome details of Essam Ali Atta's torture and the grief of his family members are enough to deter anybody.

Once you have cast off fear, the authorities send their thugs to try and put it back into your heart. But it doesn't always work.

Source: Occupy San Diego Facebook post following arrests: "Stand off over the police wanting to wash the blood away."

I've been traveling to receive training
for my job, and thus spending lots more time than normal in the belly
of the corporate beast. Corporate hotels still love to leave a copy
of USA Today to greet and orient you toward an approved version of
what's going on as you step from your room each morning. Above the
fold headlines on the day after Oakland's militarized police force
cracked the skull of a young veteran of the Marine Corps and Iraq? Municipalities are growing weary of the messy occupations (never mind the 99% growing weary of kleptocracy) and, “At last, honors for the
first Black Marines.”

The information control
industries are counting on the fact that even if you avail yourself
of the free internet connection, you're unlikely to stumble on
authentic news unless

b. You find your own news using RSS
feeds, Twitter hash tags, Facebook shares, and emails from friends of
the friends of your friends; OR

c. You get lucky.

The dissonance caused by the yawning gap between the approved version vs. what's really going on is too
much for most of my fellow citizens. That chasm can be downright bewildering. For example, the livestream
from San Diego Friday at 3:30am Pacific time showed riot police advancing on unarmed occupiers. The
voiceover of the young camera operator was frantic with adrenaline
and the injustice of it all, alternately pleading with police not to
attack him, with his mom to call everyone she knows, and with the rest of us to
witness (“1000 people are watching this right now!”) as police
pulled down tents, smiling broadly as they fingered their enormous
weapons.

Meanwhile, the Google feed of top
headlines showed not a blip about San Diego, having only just caught
up with the news about Scott Olsen that had galvanized the globe
during the previous 24 hours. (Every once in a while the list of ten
headlines from this particular spun news source is so deliciously
ironic that I save it for posterity.)

GOOGLE HEADLINES from 10/27/10

Obama's Messaging Diluted Off the
Campaign Trail

Fox News - all 2105 related »

Verdicts reached in Anna Nicole Smith
drug trial

CNN - all 707 related »

Firms Knew of Cement Flaws Before
Spill, Panel Says

New York Times - all 606 related »

Moderate Governance by the Next
Congress? Fat Chance

CBS News - all 5373 related »

Ky. Senate scuffle replayed in
Democratic ad

Washington Post - all 409 related »

Voters decide if California marijuana
legalization 'worth risk'

NECN - all 1395 related »

Microsoft Q1 results boosted by
Windows, Xbox, Office

Computerworld - all 1489 related »

Another treasurer leaves O'Donnell
campaign

Atlanta Journal Constitution - all 474
related »

Baby killed for interrupting mom's
Facebook time

msnbc.com - all 370 related »

Today, as I ate lunch at the Norfolk airport, the television above my head
was frantically reporting on: the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor.

So I lurch around on the internet a
lot, following threads down dark tunnels, hopping briefly onto social
networking sites whose workings I only dimly understand. Guided only
by my purpose – to gather information – and their purpose – to
make that possible – I listen in on conversations I probably won't
ever have, with people I probably wouldn't meet. For
example, here was some interesting chatter on Reddit as Olsen lay
still in his medically induced coma in Oakland's Highland Hospital:

[–]EbolakingAs a fellow (Active Duty) vet as well,
though never a Marine. I can't stand this hypocritical stance that
the elected officials are taking this horrible event. Though I was
never a Marine, he is a brother in arms. As a family, we must stand
together. I do recall that when I took my oath of enlistment that no
where did it say that I will protect corporate greed. I know for one,
if shit gets out of hand, I stand with the people and not the
corporate lackeys.

[–]mingus-nousThis is what
Mayor Jean Quan had to say about this "peaceful resolution"...

We want to thank the police, fire, public works and other
employees who worked over the last week to peacefully close the
encampment. We also thank the majority of the protestors who
peacefully complied with city officials.

I commend Chief Jordan for a generally peaceful
resolution to a situation that deteriorated and concerned our
community. His leadership was critical in the successful execution of
this operation. City Administrator Deanna Santana developed the plan
and secured mutual aid from other departments and the State of
California. She will direct departmental teams, including safety,
public works, communications, to restore conditions at the Plaza so
that it is available for public use.

Forget the petition, this woman needs to be physically removed
from office.

[–]calebh70118 "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they
fight you, then you win." - GandhiThe British are providing the best coverage of Occupy, for some
reason, so we've got the ignore part down. Fox News is providing the
laugh track. And now Oakland PD has started the fight.So let's fucking win.

And then I come across a
news item like Egyptians marching from Tahrir Sqaure to the US Embassy, or the Bangor Public Library offering the occupiers space on their lawn after the city threatened to evict them at 10pm on Day 1.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Dear Bangor Public Library,The news of your action on behalf of free
speech and the right of assembly in Bangor tomorrow has been shared far
and wide in my network of women-led activists, coast to coast, and
beyond our shores.

I was born in Bangor and, though I have ranged far, I now live in Solon, Maine and often visit Bangor. Thank you for warming my PINK heart today with your courage, your wisdom, and your historic action on behalf of Occupy Bangor.

Occupy Augusta is alleged to be the only site that has permission
for an open fire. Perhaps Occupy Bangor will be the only site protected
by a public library. Hooray for Maine!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The women spread a black cloth across a main street in Sana'a and threw their full-body veils, known as makrama,
on to a pile, sprayed it with oil and set it ablaze. As the flames
rose, they chanted: "Who protects Yemeni women from the crimes of the
thugs?"

Women have taken a key role in the uprising against
President Ali Abdullah Saleh's authoritarian rule. This month the Yemeni
activist Tawakkul Karman was awarded the Nobel peace prize along with
two Liberian women, for their struggle for women's rights.

This traditional Bedouin way to call for help proves once again that nonviolent methods are anything but passive. Seeing these women in Yemen signaling to be saved from the violence engulfing their society made me feel that I ought to be doing something similar. But who can save us, except ourselves?

A two-time Iraq war vet was knocked out and had his skull cracked by a tear gas canister -- that was in Oakland, CA, near where I grew up and where my family lives, not the West Bank of occupied Palestine. I saw one report suggesting that up to 16 different jurisdictions had sent their law enforcement officers to Oakland last night ("For practice," says my husband), and that Scott Olsen, 24, may have been shot by a Palo Alto policeman.

For those of you not familiar with the SF bay area, here's a map showing how close these two cities are together. Not very.

Mark again: "I wonder if they are clearing out the ones in warm places first, because they won't have winter to drive people out." Hmm, interesting theory: Denver, San Francisco, Atlanta and Oakland are on the hit parade. NYC has had its flare ups, including massive arrests, but as yet none of the occupation site has been torn down. Why did NYC's Liberty Plaza owner back down on needing to "clean" the space? Was it really the numbers swelling early that morning, with the unions marching down en masse in support? Or a wait until they're already freezing strategy that made city officials turn on a dime.

What made Oakland, CA think it could get away with treating the occupation like a violent mob? It appears that the reports of people throwing paint and maybe other projectiles at the police are true. I also heard that a rape was followed by a vigilante-style beating within the last few days. I'm not excusing the decades of police brutality practiced in Oakland, don't get me wrong. But I am analyzing the unfolding drama of the occupations, and what they mean, and how they work.

Isn't perfectly clear that the self-discipline and nonviolence of Tahrir Square made it possible for people bring their whole families, and for the numbers swell into the millions -- and that police can do little to control such crowds?

Sunday, October 23, 2011

WhyBring Our War $$ Home has seemed to me a more compelling demand than bring the troops home: it's not that I don't want the troops home with their families, healing, finding employment (good luck with that), and getting on with life. A lot of kids will look forward this winter to getting their parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers and sisters home for the holidays. A lot of National Guard soldiers who joined up with no intention of invading and occupying a foreign country will finally get to come home. Yay!

But what is the withdrawal of military personnel and their replacement by State Dept. private security contractors actually going to cost, we, the taxpayers -- will bringing the troops home bring the war $$ home, too?

And if we were to fix all that we broke in Iraq, the price tag would be enormous!

Infrastructure that was once in place to provide clean water, sewage disposal, electricity would need to be rebuilt. The National Museum in Baghdad would need to get back the unique artiifacts of earliest civilization in Mesopotamia that were looted under our watch.

The US invasion of Iraq itself resulted in the violent deaths of no less than 100,000 Iraqi civilians, according to the most conservative estimate. A 2006 study by the British medical journal Lancet found
that up to that point there had been more than 650,000 “excess Iraqi
deaths as a consequence of the war,” factoring in the lack of medical
supplies and the civil war the invasion set off. Polling firm Opinion
Research Business estimated in 2008 “that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens”
died as a result of the conflict.

More than 4.7 million Iraqis were
forced to flee their homes, according to the United Nations Refugee
Agency, with 2 million forced to leave the country entirely. Many Iraqi
women, three million of whom are now widows according to their
government, were forced into lives of prostitution, with one refugee telling the New York Timesthat if “they go back to Iraq they’ll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available.”

More than 4,400 US soldiers also needlessly died in a war based on lies, from bogus tales of Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda to claims about non-existent weapons of mass destruction that were easily debunkable at the time – had anyone in a position of power been interested in doing so.

I am oddly comforted today by my belief that the people surging in to Occupy Wall St, Chicago, the Los Angeles Unified School District, Augusta, Maine and elsewhere will not for a moment be fooled into believing that the Iraq troop withdrawal solves any of the problems that concern them.

Corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater grew wealthy on contract work in Iraq. They rewarded their fat cats, and taxpayers footed the bill. Problem not solved.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Thumbing their nose at economic injustice protests surging into streets around the world (great coverage of NYC's Oct 15 standoff in Times Square on Democracy Now!), Congress and the President passed three more "free trade" agreements to further gut U.S. manufacturing, and drive more food farmers in South Korea, Colombia and Panama off their lands.

Corporate-owned Democrats like Obama and Kerry campaign on promises to oppose the neoliberal economic policies that exploit the masses on behalf of the 1%, but once they are in office they do what their masters bid them to do.

Banks can destroy the social fabric of countries like Greece, and the social future of entire generations with debt, and who gets bailed out?

Meanwhile the war machine and its obscene profits rolls on. $200,000+ a minute just for the war against Afghanistan. Now Obama announces we're sending troops into Uganda for humanitarian reasons (NOT for the oil) while the U.S. continues to build drone bases in Africa and on the Arab peninsula, and to support developing kamikazedrones that fit in a backpack. Here's a graphic depiction of what the enforcement arm of global neoliberalism looks like and costs.

The Pentagon and the White House are pretending to squabble (again -- remember when Gen. McChrystal resigned?) to help U.S. citizens continue to believe that there is any significant difference between the federal government and the global war machine. This time it's over whether or not U.S. troops can stay in Iraq long after the "end" announced by the President elected to end it, despite failure to secure legal immunity for said troops in negotiations with Iraq's client government.
With Iraq and Afghanistan permanent bases in place, the time has come to attack Iran.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Learning to make videos in order to "be our own media" has been frustrating at times, but I am beginning to get the hang of doing it. I love the interviewing part -- that feeds my citizen journalist soul. It fascinates me how people everywhere stay on message so clearly (politicians have to be heavily coached to to do this).

#OccupyAugusta (Maine) Day 1 fell on October 15, 2011, the day of global action by people against corporate greed. Here's the local newspaper coverage of the event:

Here's a great video by Bex Hickman from Day 1, showing a lot of the action down in Capital Park, which is an historic public space just opposite the State House capitol building. Campers numbered 16 on Night 1 and were told by capitol police that they could stay overnight and have a fire if it was contained in something. The first General Assembly wasn't really a true G.A. as they were just getting organized as to working groups, etc. but Chris Buchanan taught everyone the hand signals and about 35 people participated. I love this photo of my sister in Pink Cat Erdman circling up, and the State House lit up behind her.
College students were out in force. There were students from UMF, UMA, UMO, and Thomas College. UMF's Taylor Noyes took this photo of me with my grandson:

Saturday, October 15, 2011

It is before dawn on a day of global history making, October 15, 2011. People will pour into public spaces to demand an end to government that serves corporate interests and financial elites, some while pretending to represent the common people.

An excellent piece in Common Dreams yesterday (reprinted from Foreign Policy in Focus) brings the problem into focus. Lockheed Martin's dirty dealings in Mongtomery County, Maryland to keep a war dollars home resolution from even being considered is reported by authors Jean Athey and John Feffer:

...a simple, straightforward resolution. It urged Congress “to make
major reductions in the Pentagon budget, in a manner that does not harm
the safety or lives of our troops, with the savings invested in state
and local needs so that Montgomery County and other counties in Maryland
can repair their deteriorating infrastructure, reverse budget cuts to
education, health care, and other needs, and otherwise improve the
welfare of their residents.”

On October 4, the Council president introduced this resolution with
three cosponsors. One additional Council member announced that he would
also support the resolution. With this majority, the resolution was
guaranteed to pass when it came up for a vote on October 11.

But it didn’t pass. Cue the ominous movie soundtrack.

The Machine Fights Back

Lockheed Martin is one of the premier military contractors in the world. It also employs about 5,000 people in Montgomery County. Alerted to the resolution, Lockheed Martin switched into high gear. One of its top lobbyists began calling council members. The Washington Postreported
that some Council members were also called by a “state delegate, and
the offices of County Executive Isiah Leggett (D), Gov. Martin O’Malley
(D) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D).”

Maryland officials were most upset at the prospect that Lockheed
would up and leave Maryland – for Virginia. Last year, Northrop Grumman
opted for Virginia over Maryland as the site of its new global
headquarters. The prospect that Lockheed Martin might pull up stakes
prompted Maryland County Executive Isiah Leggett to refer to the resolution as “a dagger pointed directly at the heart of Montgomery County.”

With that degree of opposition, at least one and perhaps two of the
original supporters decided to rescind their support for the resolution.
In order to avoid a defeat, the Council president pulled the
resolution, and the Council never voted on it.

A commenter called since 1492 claimed, "We don't need no stinkin resolutions. We need civil disobedience that
will lead to the dismantling of the Pentagon and the mindset that runs
it."

Well, 1492, I think we need both. Here's part of the comment I made explaining why I think so:

As for whether resolutions are worth working on, in my experience
these non-binding acts by local governance units open a space for
discussion of the issues by many citizens who are practically brain dead
from an entire lifetime of getting their "news" and information from
the mainstream media. These are discussions with the potential to
educate the 99% in a significant way. Then, when the dirty dealing of
corporate players like Lockheed Martin kicks in, the revelation of who
is really represented by county government (or town, or congress) has a
similar value in revealing truth.

There is no one path to regaining representative government. I'm
pretty sure Jean Athey has been in the streets many times. Lots of us
work on resolutions when we can, march when we can, occupy when we can.
Today, Oct 15, 2011, the whole world is going out to public spaces to
say: We are the 99%. Our government does not represent us. Corporations,
beware.

See you in the streets. I'll be there in Augusta -- you'll be there where you are. I'll be wearing my Bradley Manning t-shirt today. Bradley told the truth and he has now been locked up without trial for more than 500 days -- not for killing anyone, not for torturing anyone, not for bombing civilians, or sending troops into Uganda -- but for telling the truth. And just look what he started!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Here is CODEPINK staffer Alli McCracken getting arrested in the House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee where Defense Secretary Leon Panetta appeared, formerly of the CIA.

Alli was absurdly charged with assaulting Panetta, even though she was no closer than 10 feet away from him, and the alleged assault weapon was a piece of paper.

I guess the truth written down is pretty powerful. Her sign said "Fund My Education Not Your Wars."

The photo is an instant classic. Too bad you can't see Panetta's face, but the sea of dark cop uniforms sets off the pink tunic with the Bring Our War $ Home graphic nicely.

In my opinion, it is of the caliber of the iconic image ofDes and Condi:

You can feel the tide rising. I made a random business call today and the woman who had my info told me that her daughter was at Occupy Wall St every chance she could get. Then she was excited to learn that Occupy Augusta begins this Sat. Oct 15 at Capitol Park.

We should also spread the word that NYC is at risk and needs support. Here's the call put out by their General Assembly.

Prevent the forcible closure of Occupy Wall Street!

Tell Bloomberg: Don’t Foreclose the Occupation.
NEED MASS TURN-OUT: 6AM FRIDAY EVICTION DEFENSEThis is an emergency situation. Please take a minute to read this, and please take action and spread the word far and wide.
Occupy Wall Street is gaining momentum, with occupation actions now happening in cities across the world.
But last night Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD notified Occupy Wall
Street participants about plans to “clean the park”—the site of the Wall
Street protests—tomorrow starting at 7am. “Cleaning” was used as a
pretext to shut down “Bloombergville” a few months back, and to shut
down peaceful occupations elsewhere.
Bloomberg says that the park will be open for public usage following
the cleaning, but with a notable caveat: Occupy Wall Street participants
must follow the “rules”. These rules include, “no tarps or sleeping
bags” and “no lying down.”
NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said that they will move in to
clear us and we will not be allowed to take sleeping bags, tarps,
personal items or gear back into the park.So, seems likely that this is their attempt to shut down #OWS for good.PLEASE TAKE ACTION:1) Call 311 (or 212-NEW-YORK if you’re out of town) and tell
Bloomberg to support our right to assemble and to not interfere with
#OWS. 2) Come to #OWS on FRIDAY AT 6AM to defend the occupation from eviction.
Occupy Wall Street is committed to keeping the park clean and safe —
we even have a Sanitation Working Group whose purpose this is. We are
organizing major cleaning operations today and will do so regularly.
If Bloomberg truly cares about sanitation here he should support the
installation of portopans and dumpsters. #OWS allies have been working
to secure these things to support our efforts.
We know where the real dirt is: on Wall Street. Billionaire Bloomberg is beholden to bankers.
We won’t allow Bloomberg and the NYPD to foreclose our occupation. This is an occupation, not a permitted picnic.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Finale event of the Bring Our War $$ Home 30 day Care-a-Van around Maine, held Oct 9, 2011 at UMaine Augusta and in honor of Indigenous People's Day. The #Occupy movement was on everyone's mind and often spoken of as HOPEFUL!
Program: Overview of 30 Day Care-a-van Events -- Bruce Gagnon; Honoring Wise Earth Stewardship vs. For-Profit Use of Natural Resources -- Lisa Savage; Report Back from October2011 in Wash DC, and Indigenous People's Land Use Support by VFP -- Dud Hendrick; Maine in Environmental Crisis and Our Advocacy -- Hillary Lister; Poetry Readings -- Lee Sharkey, Henry Braun; Songs -- Judd Esty-Kendall, Dan Ellis; audience participation and announcements.

Lisa Savage, CODEPINK Maine Local Coordinator remarks on 10-9-11:

Thank
you to everyone for being here today. Thank you for bringing food and
ideas for all of us to share. I am grateful for the opportunity to
share a meal and to speak with you.

Thank
you to the Earth, the water and the sky for upholding us and
sustaining us.

Thank
you to the ancestors, who taught us how to live respectfully on our
planet.

This
is an auspicious time for people to come together and affirm the
vision of a world they would want the grandchildren and great
grandchildren to inherit.

The
original human beings had a wisdom that modern people often forget to
remember.

They
forget when they spend even one cent on killing other humans. They
forget when they allow for-profit corporations to hijack the food
supply for human beings. They forget when they allow health care to
be privatized and turned into a for-profit service. They forget when
they allow post secondary education to become a means of enslaving
entire generations to a lifetime of debt. They forget when they allow
for-profit corporations to pollute the ponds, lakes, rivers, seas and
oceans. They forget when they allow killer robots to enrich the few
while burning up children, women and men who are just going about
their lives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Gaza, and Iraq.
They forget when they allow war profiteers to drain the national
treasury.

The
original human beings were guided by the wisdom of grandmothers. In
many tribes, women collectively pooled their wisdom and chose the
elder women to guide the process of choosing leaders. These
grandmothers had the power to appoint a chief, and the power to
remove a chief.

In
the Wampanog language the word for woman means: she who has the final
say.

Where
did modern humans step off the path of life and onto a path of
pursuing death for profits?

Arguably,
at least on this continent, this misstep occurred in 1492 when a
corporatized effort to seek wealth in foreign lands bumped into the
island of Hispaniola and thought India had been reached.

In
the event, it did not matter much that it was the wrong continent.
When pillage and theft are the motivators, any wealth will do.

Tomorrow
the modern warfare state has a holiday to commemorate the ghastly
events that followed on European “discovery” of the American
continents.

We
come together today by choice to re-purpose this holiday, and to
honor the original inhabitants of North America and their deep wisdom
about stewardship of the earth's natural resources. Today we
celebrate Indigenous People's Day on our final event of the 30 Day
Care-a-Van to Bring Our War $$ Home and put them to work.

Today
we stand in solidarity with the people, mostly young adults, who have
poured into public spaces to demand an end to rule by for-profit
corporate government. #OccupyMaine is going strong – some of us
visited them yesterday in Monument Sqaure, Portland. #OccupyAugusta
is gaining strength – on Oct 15 people will gather in Capitol Park
near the State House with the same demand. #OccupyWallSt and #Occupy
Washington DC have received international press coverage, and that
coverage has spread our demand – the demand to Bring Our War $$
Home – literally around the world. A giant pink banner with the
BOW$H slogan was the backdrop for Russia TV's coverage, and a
contingent holding a BOW$H banner marched proudly past Al Jazeera's
reporter in Washington DC on Oct 6.

Thank
you activists for spreading this message of hope so far beyond the
borders of our beloved state of Maine!

This
is an auspicious time for people to come together and affirm the
vision of a world they would want the grandchildren and great
grandchildren to inherit.

Let
me reflect on another development of the Maine campaign to bring our
war dollars home: connecting with college students around the state.
The Care-a-Van kicked off with a grassroots media event organized by
WERU Community Radio and held at Unity College. Many students walked
away from that event wearing a t-shirt with one of five fantastic
bow$h images created at various campaign Draw-a-thons over the last
two years. The Care-a-van visited Umaine Farmington for leafleting on
student debt as compared with military spending. It visited Bowdoin
College for a teach in on Afghanistan. There a young man said, I am
a freshman here at Bowdoin. My parents lost our home because my
sister has leukemia and the medical bills were huge. I stood in
front of the bank that repossessed our home in Mass. And a policeman
told me I couldn't stand there without paying $50 for a permit from
the town. The young man said to those in attendance at Bowdoin, we
freshmen sit around and talk all the time, about how something is
terribly wrong in this country. We don't know what to do.

I
told him, talking to other people about what's wrong is the first
step. And you are doing that right now. I was terribly sad for his
family, but I felt overjoyed that the Care-a-Van had created an
opportunity, a space, for him to bring his story into the public
conversation.

The
Care-a-Van went to Umaine Orono last week. A peace action group on
campus met up with Care-a-Van organizers and helped leaflet before a
talk by Prof. Doug Allen. Yesterday two of those student organizers
turned up in Monument Square to connect with the General Assembly of
#OccupyMaine. It was exciting when Jessi Clement turned to me
yesterday and said, So I have a statement I brought that I wanted to
make. Let's use the people's microphone I said. I had already seen
her practice using the mike. She was still a little shy. I said, I
will stand right beside you. Then Bethany Louisos of the Free Change
collective in Portland stood right beside Jessi on the other side.
And Jessi called out

Mike
Check.

(audience
response)

We
are not lacking

in
the dynamic forces

needed
to create

the
future.

We
live immersed

in
a sea of energy

beyond
all comprehension

But
this energy

in
an ultimate sense

is
not ours by domination

but
by invocation

we
must believe

that
we are care for-profit

and
guided by

these
same powers

that
brought us into being”

Thomas
Berry

Jess
then taught us a mudra, a hand gesture from the Hindu tradition, a
particular mudra that gives strength to though and matter, and is
used to put more force behind plans for the future. I would be happy
to share it with anyone who is interested today after our program
concludes.

This
is an auspicious time for people to come together and affirm the
vision of a world they would want the grandchildren and great
grandchildren to inherit.

The
Care-a-Van to bow$h was modeled on a caravan conducted by my Pink
sisters and allies in Northern California. They began at an
occupation of a sacred site, a shell mound on the northern edge of
the San Francisco bay. Native people and their allies have been
holding that space to prevent developers from covering it with
for-profit real estate parcels. That caravan ended at their state
capital in Sacramento by joining an occupation conducted by Calif
teachers.

Today
we conclude our Care-a-Van here at yet another college in Maine, at a
center dedicated to upholding human rights for everyone, with an
event honoring the wisdom of indigenous people's stewardship of the
environment. All over the globe native people are resisting the theft
of their land and their coasts – on Jeju Island, in the rain
forests of India, on Okinawa, at Da Molina, Italy, in the great
western desert of the United States of America, sacred to many
tribes, a space which the Pentagon proposes to turn into a
militarized airspace.

To
the Pentagon and its many corporate leeches we will continue to
present our demand in every way we can imagine:

Bring
our war $$ home!

Next planning meeting for the Maine Bring Our War $$ Home campaign: Sat Oct 29, Augusta.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

A friend of a friend on Facebook posted this comment on info about why the 99% are moved to #OccupyWall St:

It's
about time we stood up! I signed up for some kind of "virtual march"
and was supposed to get details yesterday and never did. =( I'm so on
board with this!!

I believe she's referring to the large organization that has tried to jump on the #Occupy bandwagon even though they have been enabling and excusing Obama's war mongering and environmental destruction ever since they steered grassroots activists to help him get elected.

Encouraging news: activists in other countries don't think signing up for a "virtual march" is the way to change anything. Here's an authentic recipient of the Nobel peace prize, Yemen organizer Tawakul Karman, on why 'peaceful revolution' is the only solution to our global problems.

Here are people in Afghanistan having a real march to demand NATO / U.S. troops withdraw immediately. (Thanks, Janet Weil, for the link.)

And here's the real reason the U.S. has no intention of withdrawing: our government endorses any activity that produces profits for the corporations who finance election campaigns, no matter how bad that activity is for the people of the Earth. Like the Tar Sands Keystone Pipeline: the U.S. State Dept. had the environmental impact report done by consultants to the company that wants to build the pipeline!

But make no mistake:

Okay, I'm off to help #OccupyMaine starting with a potluck lunch in Monument Square, Portland at noon. Then on Sunday Oct 9 in Augusta we'll conclude our 30 day Care-a-Van to Bring Our War $$ Home with an indigenous people's day celebration at UMA starting at noon. Songs, poetry, kickass environmental activist and speaker Hillary Lister, and finger foods to share.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Above is what was going on in Maine as the war on terror surpassed a decade. And here are reports of this week's protests against U.S. militarism in Afghanistan. And here is more eloquent testimony every single day from the 99%. All over people are saying, we're fed up.

Here's what was going on in the streets of DC today, where Codepink and other groups shut down General Atomics for a time.

While this was going down inside the White House, a constant stream of Creepy visitors...Today's Schedule9:45 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing10:25 AM: The President and the Vice President meets with Senate Democratic Leadership11:30 AM: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney 11:30 AM: The President meets with Secretary of the Treasury Geithner12:00 PM: The President meets with senior advisors3:05 PM: The President welcomes the 1985 Super Bowl Champion
Chicago Bears to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their Super Bowl
victory 3:45 PM: The President holds a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi of Tunisia

Now the first day I met Medea and joined CODEPINK protesting Geithner's appearance before Elizabeth Warren's TARP hearing in April '09 seems like a harbinger of #OccupyWallSt .

Funny thing is, the quotes from young people in the mainstream press coverage on DC that I read sound just like the quotes from people in Monument Square, Portland, Maine last Saturday. And they sound just like the people I joined in a candlelight vigil tonight on a bridge in Waterville, all of whom were grandparent age.

The 99% don't need to stay on their talking points. It just naturally occurs, because they're all speaking from the heart while watching the American dream die.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The most hopeful thing about the surging wave of global protests is the repudiation of fear. Granted this is much, much easier if you're white, young, and live in the U.S.A. (at least for now) than it is if you are, for instance, a medical worker in Bahrain. But Egyptians rising up against a brutal security state dictatorship caused millions watching to throw off their own chains of fear: fear of not being cool, fear of Pentagon drone-based face recognition software, fear of admitting that you're financially broken for the forseeable future.

Still, intimidation will continue, and fear will lurk in the shadows where it thrives. Check out the crowd sourced testimony at We Are the 99% showing the most common fear in this country is lack of health care. Once you've faced that and still gotten back up to continue the struggle, you become much harder to intimidate.

Social media like Twitter and Facebook fuel the success of the world rising up because they are public, and require one to overcome fear in order to participate. (CODEPINKis all about using public displays, including humor, to rise above fear.) I overheard a young organizer in Portland last Saturday being challenged as to why he wore a Guy Fawkes mask. He said he was protecting his identity for fear of being targeted. He acknowledged that his disguise referred to the movie V for Vendetta, but said that for him the mask was not a symbol of violence, but instead referred to thousands of people pouring into Parliament at the end of the film.

An hour later the mask was off and he was speaking at #OccupyMaine's first General Assembly in Portland. His dad was there, too, supporting him. A day later and he was organizing #OccupyAugusta (Maine), which begins Oct 15. Going public allowed him to report an attempt at intimidation by the Capitol police, and allowed me to connect him with a leading civil rights lawyer in our state.

If you're not occupying Wash DC or another place near you, join us in Augusta on Sun Oct 9 to observe Indigenous People's Day and celebrate the finale of our 30 Day Care-a-Van to Bring Our War $$ Home in Maine. It's at UMaine Augusta's Holocaust and Human Rights Center from noon to 3pm. Bring finger food to share, and bring your stories. Here's one from the Care-a-Van that I'll leave you with:

A young man in the audience at the Afghanistan teach-in at Bowdoin College last week said: My parents lost their house because my sister has leukemia, and her medical care has been so expensive. Both my parents have law degrees. I stood outside the bank that repossessed our home with a protest sign and was told by police I couldn't be there without a permit from the town (in Massachusetts) that costs $50.

I told him: If 500 people had been standing there with you, I'll bet you wouldn't have needed a permit.

He said: We sit around at school and talk about it all the time, kids from all over. We know something is broken, but we don't know what to do about it.